


Saltwater

by lilac_drop



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, beachside
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-07 12:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11623914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilac_drop/pseuds/lilac_drop
Summary: "I don't plan on getting anything less than an A on this project," Leo said, clutching his pen tight, "so work with me, here.""We'll fail over my dead body. But your thesis is still sad."-In which Takumi steals an unofficial official seat, an academic rivalry is born, and a wrench is thrown into their perfect four year university plan. Or: it seems, to all of their friends, a lot like two very smart idiots falling in love.





	1. Act 1

_ 'cause you are water twelve feet deep / and i am boots made of concrete _

 

* * *

 

There was hot sauce, Leo noted, on the ceiling.

 

He stood there, staring up at the splatters of red that decorated the eggshell white of their previously unmarred ceiling, eyes still sandpapery with sleep. For a second, he wasn’t sure what he was looking at, and he might have assumed with horror that it was blood if it weren’t for the smell. Their entire kitchen stank like the back of a boardwalk restaurant, and suddenly he knew.

 

Niles. Of course.

 

It was a Monday morning, which meant his most irresponsible roommate had gone to Big Shack’s oddly-houred 9 p.m. drink special, gotten drunk off his ass, Ubered home at some point, and cooked approximately three burritos. They all had their drunk go-to food, but burritos were Niles’ territory, through and through. Which would be fine, besides the fact that there was  _ hot sauce on the ceiling. _

 

Speak of the devil – or even think of him, Leo supposed – and the devil would appear. Niles shuffled into the kitchen, shirtless and bruised with sloppily placed hickies, looking as rough as he probably felt. They both stood in the kitchen for a moment of silence, before Leo said, “Good night?”

 

“About average.”

 

“There’s hot sauce on our ceiling.”

 

“That,” Niles sighed, craning his head back to look, “there is. Yeah, I’ll get to that later. I don’t even think I’m alive right now.”

 

“You look dead.”

 

“Your compliments keep me going.”

 

Leo shook his head and pulled open the pantry, yanking out the coffee and scooping out enough for both himself and Niles. He still had 2 hours until class, but Leo was late to bed, early to rise – 9 a.m. periods didn’t bother him in the slightest (unlike Odin, who didn’t get up for his first class until nearly noon). Mornings were best when they weren't rushed.

 

“I thought you’d be asleep until Odin woke you up,” Leo commented mildly, knowing full well that when Odin was up, so was everyone else – he had a penchant for blasting heavy metal that carried right through the walls of his room.

 

“Bathroom. But now, I’m here to annoy you, as per usual,” Niles said, pulling himself up onto the counter with a grunt. His heel hit the cabinet door beneath it with a painfully hollow noise, and Leo noticed him wince in that way that was telling of trying to hide it.

 

“I appreciate that,” Leo said dryly, fastening the coffee pot beneath the drip and turning it on.

 

“How late were you up?”

 

“About 2. My test in Statistics is today.”

 

“It’s only the third week of classes.”

 

“And?”

 

“College is bullshit,” Niles said, unwrapping the twist tie from the half loaf of bread that sat next to him. He pulled out a slice and shoved half of it into his mouth, dry – ‘it soaks up the alcohol’, which Leo didn’t believe, but Niles continued preaching it like it would save all the unfortunate hungover souls in the world.

 

“I like it,” Leo said mildly, “but then again, school is always what I enjoyed. Minus the people.”

 

“You also got a full ride,” Niles pointed out, muffled around a whole mouthful of bread. “God, I don’t know how you spent all of high school doing that college prep crap.”

 

“And I don’t know how you spent all of high school being absent and still managed to graduate.”

 

“Touché.” Niles squinted at him with his one good eye, seemingly thoughtful for a moment, and then he laughed suddenly. “I remember you being the only freshman in that math class and everyone hated you for always being able to answer the board questions. You were such a fucking nerd.”

 

“The fucking nerd who helped you pass that class, you mean?”

 

“Listen, I didn’t say I’m not grateful. I probably would have failed junior year if you hadn’t been there,” he said, and then jumped off the counter, bread in one hand and scratching his hard stomach with the other. “I’m going back to bed. I’ll be at work by the time you get home tonight, probably, so don’t forget your keys this time.”

 

“What am I supposed to do with the extra coffee?” Leo asked, pointing at the steaming machine, and his roommate shrugged.

 

“Drink it, it’s good to keep the heart racing. Or leave it out for Odin. He’ll drink coffee that’s days old.”

 

With a wave, Niles headed back down the hall to his room in the corner, sweatpants sagging just enough that Leo could see way more of the man’s bare ass than he wanted to. He stood there in the kitchen, feet cold and pale against the ugly linoleum, and wondered why he lived with these people.

 

Leo turned the radio on low and listened to the channel host refer their hack weatherman, who warned against impending rain, wind, general destruction. After a few minutes, he stopped listening all together and instead opted to sip his coffee while staring blankly out the glass doors of their balcony. 

 

The sky did look awfully grey and heavy, and he despaired, not wanting to ride public transport to the university but not wanting to walk in the rain. No borrowing Niles’ car, either, since the other had to go into work early.

 

Living by the coast meant unpredictable rainstorms all the time, and he just had to hope that his luck would hold out. He left his coffee, still hot and mostly finished, on the counter so that he could go shower and dress. He paused in the middle of the hallway, quiet. Odin’s door was half cracked open, and Leo glanced in, just to make sure his other roommate was still alive.

 

And alive he…seemed, mouth open and drooling against his pillow while he snored loudly, one bare leg thrown out from beneath his yellow comforter. His mattress was on the floor, along with most of his school text books and clothes, because he complained that bed frames were a fuss and he always rolled off the bed in his sleep, anyway. 

 

With no real rush hanging over him, he took his time following the normal routine. When Leo got out of the shower, skin steaming and towel wrapped around his waist, he headed over to his room and could see his phone lighting up with approximately ten new messages.

 

_ Oh god,  _ he thought, and picked it up off of the bed warily. It seemed that whenever he was away from his phone for more than twenty minutes, someone was always bound to need something urgent. Elise’s name was blasted across the screen, and the texts were all in caps. He sighed. She texted him constantly since he had moved out of the house, but if he was getting texts this early, it meant she had forgotten to do her homework and was frantically searching for answers before she had to turn it in.

 

_ THE WORKSHEET IS DUE IN AN HOUR AND I STILL DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ROMEO AND JULIET!!!  _ was all he saw that actually wasn’t keysmashing, and then it was followed with a picture of a blank worksheet, yet to be filled out. Before he could type anything back, another text flooded in.

 

_ LEO!!!! _

 

_ ‘Shut up, okay, give me a minute’,  _ he replied, then yanked out a Post-It note and pen from his bedside table. He scribbled down all the answers that corresponded to the blank spots that Elise had yet to fill out, the knowledge coming to him easily from god knew how many studies of Shakespeare. All of the questions were painfully simple – who killed Mercutio and why, where did Romeo and Juliet meet, and on. This teacher had probably copy and pasted this worksheet for years.

 

_ ‘here, _ ’ he said, and sent a picture of the answers.  _ ‘actually read and do the work next time’ , _ to which Elise replied that he was the best big brother and that she would die for him, and he said he knew. Honestly, he should have let her suffer so she would learn to finish things on time, but then she would cry and he wouldn’t hear the end of it.

 

Elise wasn’t dumb, not by a long shot, but he thought there was no way that wasn’t reflected in some of her school work. School just wasn’t for her, and while he couldn’t empathize, he knew that there was a place for her out in the world that didn’t have anything to do with papers and exams. She and Camilla were the personable ones of the family, after all.

 

Throwing his phone back down onto the bed, he dressed , shoved on his boots, and headed out. As he walked through the dim main lobby, he passed by their hallway neighbor, Charlotte, who was pulling mail from her box. She was wearing bunny slippers and looking decidedly pissed off, but Leo still greeted with a politely nervous, “Good morning.”

 

The woman terrified him, and he wasn't really terrified of _anyone_. He didn’t see much of her unless Xander was visiting; it was like she somehow had a weird sixth sense and needed to borrow something – sugar, a box cutter, _whatever,_ complete with a low cut shirt and all smiles. Any other time she was ready to tear apart anyone who so much as looked at her wrong. 

 

With a scowl, Charlotte looked up, yesterday’s makeup smeared into a nice smoky eye. Her long blonde hair was tangled into a ponytail at the back of her head, and Leo didn’t dare point out that she had a leaf stuck in it. What did this woman get up to at night?

 

“Yeah, hi,” she replied, then slammed her mail box closed and trudged past him to go back upstairs. He rolled his eyes once he knew she had no chance of seeing.

 

It was about a thirty minute walk to his university, but Leo moved quickly, spurred by the fear of the sky splitting open and pouring any second. They lived as far away from the heart of the city as they could, considering that everything else was crazy expensive. Their neighborhood was a little broken down, but it was cheap, and most importantly, it was  _ quiet _ . Anything by the main boulevards or the beach roads were chokingly busy, and he spent enough time surrounded by people when he was on campus.

 

He had grown up here, by the beach, from suffocating suburbia to city. After their father passed, Xander had kept the family going, though the house was much too big for just the four of them; he still had yet to sell it despite the fact that he and Elise were the only ones still living there.

 

Leo loved his family more than anything, but being away from their house had relieved him of a stress he hadn’t known he was carrying. It had been like living with a ghost, their father’s missing presence permeating everything, from the empty bedroom and office to Xander’s silences. Learning to breathe on his own after growing up in suffocation was proving to be one of the more unique challenges he had ever been faced with.

_You'll be fine living away from us, Leo,_ Xander had said in the moving van, hands clutched tight to the steering wheel _. You've always been capable._  


 

Thunder cracked open the sky, and his thoughts settled slow, like silt. With a glance up, he knew he was doomed. One fat raindrop hit his pale cheek, and he began to run.

 

* * *

 

There was an unspoken rule in college – well, there were multiple, but of the most prevalent, the most  _ sacred _ , was that you didn’t take someone’s seat. Of course seats weren’t assigned, but if someone had sat in one place for more than a few classes, it was theirs. That’s just how it was, no argument. Leo liked this rule. He liked structure. He had a day planner that was filled almost to the hour, for god’s sake, color-coded and tabbed to boot.

 

He tapped his booted foot against the polished floor, fresh mopped courtesy of the early morning janitorial staff. A girl next to him yawned, then snapped her gum, hunched over in a big hoodie that still smelled of booze from the night before. He was drenched from the rain and thoroughly, extremely agitated.

 

_ Someone’s sitting in my seat,  _ he texted to the group chat, fingers moving quickly against his phone screen. He stared hard at the back of the boy’s head, at his long silvery hair all bundled up in a bun. His shirt tag was sticking out, and Leo wanted to go up, tuck it in, and then pull the dumbass straight from his chair.

 

Leo’s phone buzzed in his palm, and he glanced down.

 

_ Nasty: kill them _

 

Niles had responded as quickly as usual, and Leo rolled his eyes. Odin, predictably, hadn’t answered. Half the time his phone was lost, a direct result of putting it in random places and then forgetting it, but there was no way he was up yet. He didn’t bother to question why Niles had texted back when he was supposed to be sleeping.

 

_ I want to,  _ Leo snapped back,  _ but I haven’t ever missed a day of classes and I think they would kick me out for that. _

 

_ Nasty: i’ll do it, then _

 

_ Fucking Nerd: Thank you. _

 

_ Nasty: anything for you ;) _

 

“Good morning,” came the voice of their professor as she walked in, eyes squinty with sleep. Her coffee mug was still steaming. Leo flipped his phone over dutifully, even though half the students in the class texted underneath their desks for the entire hour period. He was, if nothing else, the perfect student. He was built for college, had all the ingredients needed to make it through smoothly.

 

He did everything all according to plan. Scholarships, early college prep, extreme money saving so that he could move out of his house and into the three-bedroom with Niles and Odin, just off of campus. When his family helped him move in, Camilla had cried and Xander slipped the very first bill into the  _ Roommates Collective Booze Funds _ , which was just an empty plastic pretzel container that always sat on their counter.

 

That first semester had been a dream. Six classes, stacked neatly in a week’s schedule, a part-time job at the bookstore, constant paper writing and math scribbles, books always opened on his desk and Leo got A after A after A, president’s list going into winter break with his shiny 4.0. He was, as Niles said, fucking killing it.

 

This is what he was made for, after all. A scholar through and through, and  _ he didn’t steal people’s seats. _

 

“I know it’s the second week, but I’m expecting you all actually followed through with your first reading,” said Professor – god, what was her name? – something German, he thought. She pushed her circle glasses farther up her nose when the class gave her a less than enthusiastic response, mostly consisting of mutters.

 

Leo leaned back as she began her lecture, outlining the first 8 chapters they had been given to read. Their syllabus was extensive and just as intense – Global Issues in Literature, required for all aspiring English majors – but Leo had already read half the books on the list. He had gone into college knowing he wanted to be an English major, was bouncing around the idea of a double major in mathematics. Odin, their resident Linguistic major, called this  _ duality of man _ since he himself couldn’t do math worth a shit.

 

He wrote down notes as she talked, not sure if everything in her Powerpoint would be on exams, highlighting key terms as he deemed them necessary. The boy who had stolen his seat wrote sporadically, and Leo could take a bet that his notes were just as much of a mess as his hair.

 

“Do you all,” their professor asked as she scribbled a note of  _ globalization/colonization  _ on the board, “have thoughts on the character of Gemmy?”

 

It wasn’t a surprise that no one raised their hands immediately, though participation was about 30% of their credit. Leo’s fingers twitched. Such an easy question, it was open-end, and his hand went up just as Seat Boy’s did.

 

“Yes, Takumi, right?” she said, pointing at Seat Boy, and when he nodded, Leo corrected it bitterly in his head. Takumi.

 

“He’s written as this really unlikeable character,” he said, not hesitating, the voice of someone who regularly spoke up in class. “It’s honestly kind of – embarrassing how Malouf depicts him. Which is intentional, I think.”

 

“Why do you think that is?”

 

“He’s supposed to give the reader a feeling of discomfort, you know, he’s displaced in this Australian settlement even though he’s not native. The whole thing is geared – it’s imperialistic.”

 

“So does that make his character symbolic?” she asked, generally directed to the class, and without exactly meaning to, Leo’s hand shot up from its half-fallen position. She gestured to him, obviously grateful more than one person was actually speaking up.

 

“Yeah – Leo?”

 

At the mention of someone else’s name, Takumi twisted around in his seat, and Leo glanced at him. His full lips were kind of still parted, as if halfway through a sentence, and Leo realized that he hadn’t been done talking before their professor had called on him. Good.

 

“I think he’s symbolic in terms of rejected hybridization. He’s supposed to represent a mixture of the two cultures, but the colonists can’t classify him since he isn’t British-born. Malouf separates him from the rest of the aboriginal description, so he turns into this kind of...terrifying thing they can’t understand.”

 

“Yes, so we – okay, yeah, Takumi?” she said, because he had put his hand up again, quickly. Leo frowned.

 

“I disagree,” Takumi said, not shying away from Leo's gaze. It felt almost like a challenge, like he was daring Leo to disagree with his disagreement. Or was Leo imagining that? “Gemmy isn’t really separated from the land. There’s, like, super clear description of both the land and Gemmy written as savage, even though he’s really just a scared person. Not a _thing_.”

 

“But that rules out the idea of him being hybridized. They don’t see him as a person, anyway,” Leo replied automatically, a little offended that the other boy was trying to splice his words, and Takumi, who had turned to look at the professor, whipped his head back around. His eyes, big and amber, narrowed a little. So Leo definitely hadn't been imagining it. 

 

“Well, yeah. His hybridization isn’t real. The whole point is that the colonists can’t see him as a character of two cultures.”

 

“I said it was rejected hybridization,” Leo said, aware that his voice raised an octave in annoyance. “He doesn’t - ”

 

“Do you know how colonization in Australia worked?” Takumi asked, raising one thin brow, and Leo’s mouth opened and closed while he tried to process what he had just been asked. This kid was looking at him like he was stupid.  _ Did he know how colonization worked? _

 

“Yeah, I do. Do you know how literary terms work?” Leo asked right back, and before Takumi could say anything to that, their professor cut in with a, ‘okay, that’s enough’. A girl in the back raised her hand and offered a completely separate opinion, and suddenly, the topic was veered. Leo and Takumi continued to stare at each other as if they hadn’t politely just been told to shut up, lips pressed into hard lines.

 

Then, with a sigh that Leo couldn’t quite hear but could see, Takumi rolled his eyes and turned back around. Leo sat rigidly upright, fingers drumming on his desk. Everything in him wanted to continue arguing, but he refused to interrupt the class just because some asshole had something to say.

 

What was his problem? He bent over his notes, picked up his pen, and kept writing. This was fine, it was fine, but also it completely wasn’t fine because Leo wasn’t  _ wrong _ and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to dispute the point. For the rest of the period, Leo alternated between staring at the back of Takumi’s stupid head and looking down at his notes; at one point, he caught Takumi looking at him over his shoulder, unashamed. But he didn’t raise his hand again, and then it was ten, and everyone was packing up to leave.

 

“I’ll expect you to finish the book by Wednesday,” Professor Mueller (Leo had checked the syllabus for her name) said to the class as they tried to all file out at once. He stood, shoving his folder and notebook back into his bag, and glanced to the side. Takumi hadn’t even gotten up yet, too busy staring down at his phone and texting.

 

For a second, Leo considered just walking out without comment. This guy hadn’t actually done anything tangibly wrong, besides be annoying as all hell in a few aspects. But Leo was still damp and cold, he was hungry, stressed by the looming of his exam, and overall just not a _ happy guy. _ He was, in other words, feeling extremely petty.

 

As he passed by Takumi, Leo paused and looked down. Takumi, as if on cue, looked up. His face immediately morphed into something sour, brows creasing at the sight of Leo. Up this close, he felt more like a real person, and somehow that made it worse. His bangs fell into his eyes like a curtain, and his skin was perfectly clear besides one red spot on his chin, and that was the spot Leo stared at for one drawn out second to make sure Takumi knew he noticed.  

 

“Hey,” Leo said, voice pinched, “Just so you know, I normally sit here.”

 

Surprisingly, Takumi laughed, but it sounded sharp and not like a laugh at all.

 

“Fuck, seriously?” he replied. “You should have put your name on it, huh?”

 

“Since I’ve been sitting here the past three weeks, I figured I didn’t need to.”

 

“Must not have noticed you,” Takumi said dryly, and then turned back to his phone, fingers hovering over the cracked screen. Leo swayed in his spot a little before muttering a ‘whatever’ and stalking off, unable to say anything else without really getting nasty. 

 

With plenty of repressed irritation, he stomped down a floor and slammed through the large oak doors of the English hall; it was just barely drizzling, and he squinted against the fine film of rain that misted down. He was halfway to Statistics, still irritated, when Xander called him. Leo picked up and said, a little too snappishly, “Hello?”

 

“Hey, Leo – you doing okay?”

 

Of course concern was the first thing out of Xander’s mouth, and Leo sighed. Someone biked past him quickly, making him flinch. Campus’ main walkway was packed, everyone scrambling to their next class in shoes that still squeaked from the earlier downpour. Leo pressed the phone harder to his ear so he could hear his brother speak.

 

“Yeah, it’s…I’m fine. Just an annoying kid in my class,” he replied, cutting off his own reply, because he knew Xander was busy and didn’t have time to listen to any bitching. 

 

“Oh?”

 

“We kind of argued.”

 

“Well, if someone can argue with you, they must be brave,” Xander commented. “I know you’re on your way to class, but I wanted to call you quickly and ask if you still planned to come over for dinner tomorrow night.”

 

“If nothing changes, then I’ll be there.”

 

“Good, good. Camilla said she’d pick you up around 5.”

 

“Okay, sounds fine.”

 

“We’re all looking forward to seeing you - ” and then he cut off, murmuring to someone who started talking in the background. He was at work in the office right now, so time to call was precious. It was no surprise when he continued quickly with, “I have to go. See you tomorrow, alright?”

 

“Alright. Talk to you soon.”

 

And then Xander was gone. He shoved his phone back into his pocket, unexcited to go back to his house but happy with the idea of seeing all of his siblings at once. But he had to get through today first – he showed up to Statistics just in time and sat in his normal seat, then blew through his exam like water. Exams, at the very least, couldn’t argue back. They just were.

 

* * *

 

 

At 5:30, as with every Monday (and Wednesday, and Friday), Leo walked himself from the library, across the campus’ sprawling garden courtyard, over the bridge, and up the steps to one of the biggest dining halls they had. He wasn’t really keen on most of the food, but he and Odin met every other day to get dinner and then walk home because they were poor and cheap food was cheap food. Leo refused to use any of the family funds on school, and that included meal swipes.

 

He found his roommate on the regular bench, wearing a chewed up tank top he had gotten at a concert who knew how long ago and blasting music so loudly that his headphones betrayed him by about five feet. Leo didn’t even bother saying hello since it would be pointless, instead opting to clap a hand onto Odin’s shoulder. Odin yanked his headphones off immediately, smiling, ash blonde hair a mess.

 

“My friend!” he exclaimed, as he always did, and even after years of knowing him, it still made Leo smile.

 

“Hey. What are you reading?”

 

“ _Dogeaters._ ”

 

“Jessica Hagedorn?”

 

“Yes, actually!” Odin stood and grabbed his backpack, hastily stuffing said book and headphones inside. “I shouldn’t be surprised when you of all people know exactly what book I’m reading.”

 

“I read it for a lit class last semester. I still have notes and an essay from it, if you want to take a look,” Leo offered, hiking his own bag higher on his shoulder and they started up the grassy hill. The dining hall was an old, looming thing with grey pillars and a domed roof. Apparently it had started as an actual scholar’s hall and then been downgraded when the university had money to expand.

 

“I absolutely want to take a look,” Odin replied, then he turned his head to give Leo a puzzled look. “And, also, did you notice that there was hot sauce on our ceiling this morning? Or was that blood?”

 

“Hot sauce. Niles.”

 

“So…it could have also been blood.”

 

“Yes,” Leo said, almost laughing. “You’re not wrong.”

 

The inside of the hall was relatively empty, most people not bothering to come around until later in the evening. They swiped their cards at the entrance, and Odin practically sprinted for the buffet, leaving Leo to trail along behind him, not nearly as motivated by all the food.

 

“Oh shit!” Odin said loudly, and he jammed an entire fist into a metal tray that was filled to the brim with chicken nuggets. “Dude, they have  _ nugs _ !”

 

“I really wish you wouldn’t call them  _ nugs _ ,” Leo said dryly, reaching out to grab a pair of clamps so that he could fill a cheap ceramic bowl with salad. At least it didn’t look wilted. “It’s uncomfortable.”  

 

“What’s so uncomfortable about the words  _ nugs _ ? I’m the Linguistics major, here.”

 

“I don’t think your major has anything to do with the fact that the word is uncomfortable.”

 

“Is it because it makes you think of weed? I know you don’t like weed, you know, after that one time - ”

 

“Don’t bring that up,” Leo snapped quickly, and he glanced around, as if anyone could be listening in. Odin let out a loud bark of laughter before splatting a whole mound of mashed potatoes onto his plate. The sight made Leo vaguely ill.

 

“Don’t you want any more than salad?” Odin asked. “You need to stay strong! We should enact a protein shake routine into our household.”

 

“I’m waiting until we get to the soup,” Leo defended, a little despairingly. “And I’d choke before drinking a protein shake. They taste like blended chalk.”

 

“Is it a texture thing with you? Is that why you don’t like mashed potatoes?” As if he could suddenly change Leo’s mind, Odin scooped up a forkful of the blended potatoes and jammed them at his friend’s face. “Have you even tried them since you were, like, 10?”

 

“Ugh, no. And I don’t intend to try them at 19, either,” Leo replied with a curled lip, pushing Odin’s hand away.

 

“You’re unholy. What kind of guy doesn’t like mashed potatoes?”

 

To that, Leo didn’t respond, but instead swerved around Odin and beelined it for the soup, hoping to god that they had broth-based and nothing to do with chowder. And luck was on his side for the first time today – he spooned as much veggie soup into his bowl as it could handle, careful not to splash it all around like Odin was so skilled in doing. He closed the lid and glanced up, hoping that Odin was done getting his food so they could get a seat by the big stained glass windows.

 

He saw Odin at the silverware cart, grabbing a whole handful of napkins. And behind him, as Leo’s gaze happened to stray, a familiar bundle of silvery hair.

 

Oh, god. Leo’s face twisted up as if he had just had a whole lemon slice jammed into his mouth. That kid from his class – Takumi, that was his name – was sitting with two others, mouth cracked open into a laugh.

 

Leo walked over to Odin quickly, trying to make it less obvious that he was staring.

 

“Can we sit over by the windows?” Leo asked. “On the other side?”

 

“Uh, yeah. You want to switch up the sides, huh? Very adventurous,” Odin commented, and then paused before grabbing a whole handful of salt packets.

 

“That’s me. Adventurous.”

 

Odin smiled, and it looked like he might say something, but then someone hollered his name – much louder than necessary, Leo garnered, since the source of the voice was hardly any distance away. They both looked, and a boy was waving his arm wildly as if further attention was actually needed.

 

“Hinata, what’s up!” Odin called back, just as loudly, and it was only natural – of course it was only _fucking natural_ – that this boy had to be the one sitting right across from Takumi. Leo and Takumi’s eyes met, and they stared hard enough to practically drill holes through each other’s skulls.

 

Then Odin clapped a hand on Leo’s shoulder and said, good-naturedly, “Let’s go sit with them.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“Come on, we sit in the same spot every day.”

 

“I like our spot.”

 

Odin’s reply was to snag Leo by his shirt and haul him bodily over to the table, the other hand perfectly balancing a meal that threatened to snap the tray in two. Immediately, Hinata scooted over on the bench and patted the space next to him, a space which Odin occupied as quickly as possible. There was, as it seemed, no getting out of it now. Leo's appetite was suddenly lost.

 

So much for the day’s luck. He sat down on the very edge of the bench, practically falling off of it, and ignored the way Takumi and the girl next to him were staring. He refused to reveal how uncomfortable this entire ordeal was making him, because that would mean somehow, Takumi would win. Obviously.

 

“Who’s this?” Hinata asked, leaning around Odin, before he stuck out one tan hand. He, at the very least, had a kind face set with large brown eyes. It was the kind of face Leo was apt to trust, against his better wishes. “Hey, I’m Hinata.”

 

Leo dutifully shook it, and replied, “Leo.”

 

“Hinata and I are in finite math together,” Odin interjected.

 

“So we suffer together,” Hinata finished, and Leo thought that they seemed weirdly parallel to one another. He pointed at the two across the table, and added, “This is Takumi and Oboro.”

 

“Hey,” Oboro said, at the same time that Takumi said, warily, “We’ve met.”

 

“So you guys know each other?” Hinata asked, and Odin’s gaze turned onto Leo, questioning. Leo’s eyes darted all over the place – from his friend’s face, to Takumi’s sour one, down to his soup and back up. He should have left after his history lecture, apparently, because he would have rather been about anywhere else besides here.

 

“We’re in global issues together,” Leo replied, and then tacked on awkwardly, “That’s all.” 

 

“Wait,” Hinata said. “Are you Odin’s roommate? The one that helps him with all his math assignments?”

 

“Yes,” Leo answered, a little reluctantly.

 

“So this is the infamous math wizard,” he said. “Can I get you to tutor me too?”

 

“Hinata, I already said I’d help you,” Oboro cut in, manicured hand waving in the air with a decidedly irritated swipe. She had obviously not really been listening until this instant, too busy picking at...whatever was on her plate. Was that meatloaf? “What, you don’t want my help?”

 

“No offense, but Odin’s answers are always right because Leo helps him, apparently,” Hinata replied, and pointed a finger at Leo, as if  _ that  _ wasn’t uncomfortable. “And this guy is a math major. Oboro, you're a _fashion_ major.”

 

“I'm not officially a math major yet,” he said, or tried to say over the sound of Oboro’s sigh. She tossed her long blue ponytail off her shoulder, and Takumi picked up his drink, the glass sweating against his long, calloused fingers. 

 

“I never understood math majors,” Takumi commented, raising his brows at Leo. Why were his brows so expressive? Why did they move so much? “What do you even do? I mean, practically?”

 

“I’m an English major first and foremost, actually,” Leo stressed. “I’m double majoring.”

 

“Wow, impressive,” Takumi said, in a way that insinuated that it wasn’t impressive at all. “So you either want to be a teacher or an accountant?”

 

“I’m sorry, and what’s your major?”

 

“History.”

 

“So you enjoy studying dead people and soon-to-be dead people. And what does that do, I mean,  _ practically _ ?” Leo asked, and within two seconds, Takumi’s entire face had flooded red. 

 

“Did we miss something?” Oboro asked. “Did you guys have a fight in a dirty alley or something?”

 

For a long, tense moment, neither of them answered, and Leo thought seriously on why he was letting himself be so irritable. He was the first to admit that he didn’t make friends easily, not even on a good day, but even this was a little much. Was it the seat? Was it the way Takumi had practically challenged him in front of the entire class? Was it the fact that his face just looked punchable? 

 

Yes. The answer was yes, to all of those reasons. 

 

“That’s exactly what happened,” Takumi muttered, and then he slurped his drink much too loudly, and Leo wanted to flip his soup into the other boy's face. 

 

“...so was that a yes or no to tutoring me?” Hinata asked awkwardly, and Leo rubbed his temples to try and fend off the quickly encroaching headache.

 

“I can help you,” he said, against his better judgement, and Takumi rolled his eyes as if the answer had personally offended him. 

  
_ Yeah, _ Leo thought, _ luck definitely isn’t on my side today.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reliable List of References:  
> 1\. Beginning quote is from "Twelve Feet Deep" by The Front Bottoms.  
> 2\. The character of Gemmy that Leo and Takumi argue over is from "Remembering Babylon" by David Malouf, which is a great book about the Australian colonization settlement and also great to read if you want to be depressed.
> 
> I've never in my life written a college AU and I'm already LOVING it, it's been a long time coming. A couple notes about this story: I have a bad habit of updating irregularly, so 'Saltwater' will be following a weekly updating process to keep me accountable. Any sensitive thematics that come up (drinking, drugs, sexual content, etc.) will be noted at the start of the chapter. It's rated Mature right now for good reason, but might move to E!
> 
> I super appreciate any kudos and comments, they keep me fueled. As always, you can find me on laceandcaramel.tumblr.com OR on a shiny new Twitter that I kind of sort of know how to use @seafoam_sighs.
> 
> Until next time! Thank you for reading!


	2. Act 2

_i've never seen your type of species / gives me heebiejeebies_

 

* * *

 

 

Takumi was one of the first to admit - well, maybe not the _first_ \- that he didn’t exactly have his shit together. He was nineteen. No one at nineteen was supposed to have their shit together, and according to Hinoka, it didn’t really get any better with age. You just got better at hiding it.

But he thought that, all things considered, he was doing pretty well. Sometimes, when it felt like he was drowning, he made a little mental checklist of things he was getting right. On the list of _I’m Not A Complete Failure_ were the following: He showed up for class most of the time and his marks were good, his job paid him relatively well (renting out surfboards and jet skis at a beach shack could only pay so much, anyway), his archery was killer, and he didn’t get blackout drunk at parties, not after that one time.

Yeah, so – things were good. Nice, even.

Of course, as the universe worked, there would always be someone out there who was one step ahead of him. It took him a long time to semi-accept that you couldn’t be better than everyone. That was fine, good for them or _whatever_ , but sometimes he felt the overwhelming inclination to step on their toes.

From the second he turned around in his seat and saw that blonde boy, sitting straight and looking decidedly haughty, Takumi knew they were going to have a problem. Leo, as he was called, seemed like the exact type of person who Takumi would get into fights with in middle and high school; the boys with their perfect grades and narrow eyes, mean streaks deeper than the rest of their personalities.

How did Takumi infer this from a one hour class? Well, just a hunch. Jumping to trust new people wasn’t his forte, especially when they talked to him like they had a huge stick jammed up their ass.

So it was with a healthy dose of trepidation and annoyance that Takumi accepted Leo sitting right across from him during dinner, convinced that karma was paying him back for some kind of mistake on his part.

Within ten minutes, he had to wonder how in this given universe Odin and Leo were friends in the first place. Odin was the muscled kind of boy that obviously made friends with plenty of people, _definitely_ a party-type, if the ripped up metalhead tank and millions of band pins on his backpack were anything to go by. He laughed just as loudly as Hinata did.

Meanwhile, had Leo been outside once in his life? Like, ever? The completely black outfit against all that pale skin made him look almost sick in the fluorescent light of the dining hall. He was tall, slender, and he kept pressing his mouth into a hard line. Takumi knew that he was staring, but he didn’t make any effort to stop, and was instead spurred on once he realized that his staring was making Leo irritated. He kept meeting Takumi’s gaze and then flitting away; at first, his eyes had struck Takumi a little sideways, the burgundy irises framed by lashes that seemed entirely too long for a boy.

Strange. He was strange.

Takumi had to force himself to veer back into the conversation, aware that he had tuned out for the better part of a few minutes. Odin and Hinata were doing most of the blabbering, but Oboro put in her own comments here and there, probably disagreeing with whatever Hinata said.

“ – so he told me I couldn’t get full points since the citation was wrong, but I hadn’t done the citation wrong, I just did the wrong kind of citation,” Hinata complained, and Odin nodded along with it sympathetically. Leo looked like he was about to say something before thinking better of it.

“You should have asked me first,” Takumi interjected dryly, and Hinata had the good sense to look a little sheepish, “considering I can do history papers in my sleep.”

“What are you studying history for? I mean, you have a concentration?” Odin asked, and Takumi thought it was obvious that he was trying to be nice in compensation for his friend’s sourness.

“Ancient Hoshido, mostly. My entire family is Hoshidan and I got really interested in it while I was trying to – make connections, you know? Plus there’s still a lot of controversy in the field that goes with the old cultural practices, so it’s not completely dead when it comes to publishing scholar articles,” he explained. “I thought about studying English, but history seemed more like my specialty.”

“That’s probably a good thing,” Leo said, not looking up as he stirred his soup, and for a second the dig flew right over Takumi’s head. But then that second tragically ended, and if anyone had strapped a blood pressure cuff on him right then, they would have been alarmed at the way it rose.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and Leo’s eyes flickered up. “It would be sad if English was my major and I still couldn’t make an argument worth a shit.”

 _That_ got his attention, and the same expression of fiery irritation passed over Leo’s face, just as it had earlier in the day when Takumi had refused to apologize for taking a seat. A seat!

It did well for Takumi to refuse acknowledgement of the fact that, had he been in Leo’s position, he would have been just as bitter. Last semester, when someone borrowed a pen from him and never gave it back, he had bitched about it for three days. Takumi wasn’t exactly winning awards in the ‘peace and acceptance’ department. Oboro suggested, about three times a week, that he try deep breathing exercises, yoga, or generally being less dramatic.

It was Oboro, unsurprisingly, that cleared her throat and suggested, “It’s almost time to go pick up Sakura, isn’t it?”

The subject change wasn’t subtle, but Takumi begrudgingly answered with, “Yeah.”

“Who’s Sakura?” Odin asked, oblivious to any tension that had settled over the table. God bless him.

“My little sister. She’s still in high school and she does a lot of shit after hours.”

“We gotta go to the grocery store after we drop her off at the house,” Hinata sighed, despairing at the thought of spending money. “I need more ramen to cry into.”

“We need to go grocery shopping too,” Odin said. “Our other roommate always says he’s going to go shopping, and then he forgets.”

At that, Leo snorted, but said nothing. Takumi glanced at him, and he missed the way that Hinata smiled, so it blindsided him when his best friend said, “You guys should just come with us! We’re taking the car, anyway.”

Takumi cherished Hinata, he really did, but the boy had a bad habit of social blundering (as if Takumi could talk, but that wasn’t the point); you didn’t just invite people into your older sister’s _extremely cool_ and environmentally-friendly hatchback, especially when one of them was a total snot.

Oboro pushed her hand against her mouth, trying not to laugh when Takumi sputtered, “Hinata, I don’t think - ”

“Oh, _dude_ ,” Odin exclaimed, not even paying attention when Leo clamped one hand on his shoulder, the bony knuckles white as a sheet. No one could stop him from continuing with, “That’d be sweet.”

“Odin, we shouldn’t impose,” Leo objected, and for the first time, Takumi agreed with what was coming out of his mouth. “Especially when – you know.”

“Especially when what?” Takumi found himself asking, unable to stop himself from automatically jumping to the defensive, because how could he _not_ say anything?

Leo raised his thin brows, as if Takumi was supposed to know the answer, and Takumi wondered, briefly, how quickly he’d be kicked out of school if he punched the other in his nose. It was a small nose, really narrow, it’d probably snap like a wishbone.

“Can you drive?”

_“Can I drive?”_

“Well, I mean. Can you drive well?”

“I can drive perfectly fine, thanks,” Takumi snapped, and without pause, Oboro interjected with, “He sucks.”

“Listen, if I crashed the fucking car, I’d be doing us all a favor. We haven’t even gotten to mid-terms yet,” he continued, deftly ignoring Oboro, and he stood up quickly, grabbing his bag. “Now can everyone shut up and get up? I have to go be a good brother.”

“Some of us want to live to see mid-terms,” Leo said dryly, but he stood anyway, taking both his and Odin’s dirty dishes with him.

“I kind of don’t.”

“Odin, please.”

“I’m calling shotgun,” Hinata said, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. He sidled around the table and put one tan arm over Takumi’s broad shoulders, mouth twisting into a grin. “If anyone’s gonna be launched headfirst out of the windshield, it better be me.”

“None of you have any faith,” Takumi muttered, and if one ignored the five speeding tickets and the singular incident of ramming straight into a parked car, he was a great driver. Hinoka had taught him herself with only minimal screaming, and she let him borrow the car whenever he begged and pleaded. The only time she let him take it without practically signing a blood oath was when she couldn’t leave campus and pick up Sakura herself. It wasn’t like he was getting to take it out and party, but freshmen couldn’t have cars on campus and all of them were grateful for being able to drive to their errands rather than walk.

Plus, he was a good big brother, and big brothers hauled all the way over to the local high school just so their sister wouldn’t have to walk home and chance getting kidnapped.

If anyone had asked him if this was how he saw his afternoon going, he would have laughed, hard. Hinata took shotgun exactly as he had said, and Odin sat smackdab in the middle of the back seat so that he could lean forward and fiddle with the radio.

“Can we fit another person in here?” Leo asked, buckling up and pulling his seatbelt preventatively tight. Takumi cranked the AC and rolled his eyes.

“My sister isn’t even a hundred pounds soaking wet. And you’re not exactly taking up space, yourself. We’ll be fine,” he replied, and saw Leo scowl from the rearview mirror.

“Can you put it on 99.7?” Oboro asked Odin, nudging him in the bicep, and he changed it dutifully. Immediately, loud pop blared from the radio, and half of the car groaned. “Can all of you shut up? It’s a good song.”

“I’ve heard this song like eighty times in the past day,” Hinata sighed, resting the side of his head against the window, but he didn’t dare change the radio.

“Do I complain when you play the same album over and over every night that we hang out?”

“You don’t even live in the same dorm as us! You’re the one who keeps coming over!”

“He’s got a point,” Takumi said, clearly distracted as he accelerated a little too fast out of the parking space and whipped around to the exit of the lot. He popped the blinker on for all of a split second before making the decision to pull out in front of the long line of cars that were racing down the road, post-light change. If he didn’t go now, they’d be waiting forever, but no one exactly acted grateful as they held on for dear life.

Whatever, if everyone lived, he was doing his job.   

They zoomed down the university boulevard, and Odin leaned forward, stretching as far as the seatbelt would let him. He stuck his head between Takumi and Hinata like a dog that was put in the backseat.

“So you guys room together right? How shitty are the school dorms?” he asked, and Hinata shrugged.

“Could be worse. We’re in one of the newer buildings. We have AC and a kitchen, that’s all I care about.”

“I live in one of the older buildings. They get cockroaches,” Oboro grumbled, and she cracked the window. The immediate breeze tossed her hair wildly around her face, and she grimaced before rolling the window back up.

“You guys live off campus, though, yeah? Where at?” Hinata asked.

“By Mulberry and 5th.”

“By the taco place?”

“Exactly by the taco place, which is an amazing establishment to live near,” Odin said with a quick thumbs up and then jabbed that same thumb in Leo’s direction. “Leo doesn’t eat tacos, though, so it’s mostly just him walking me and Niles there and back while we’re drunk to make sure we don’t die.”

“You don’t eat tacos?” Takumi asked, piquing up suddenly. He met Leo’s gaze in the mirror again. “Are you actually the devil?”

“Probably,” was all Leo replied, and he went back to looking out the window. Somehow, Takumi wasn’t surprised that he had agreed.

“He doesn’t eat a lot of things,” Odin supplied, not unkindly. To that, Takumi had nothing to say. He reached for the radio and turned the music up, because the song had mercifully changed and he could stomach it now. Hinata and Odin chatted idly, but mostly it was quiet, and that was just fine with him.

Every now and again, he’d glance in the rearview mirror; Leo never looked up, though, too busy staring out of the window as all the buildings rushed past. The evening sunlight scattered a bright patch across the sharp curve of his cheekbone. Takumi had the sinking feeling that he’d be seeing a lot of Leo’s face over the next five months. Not only were they stuck in class together, but if their best friends were associating, they’d most likely end up in the same places.

Back in high school, after one too many fights, Ryoma has asked him why he couldn’t just get _along_ with people.

 _Not everything has to be a battle_ , Ryoma had said, cleaning a cut under his little brother’s eye. _You can’t throw a temper tantrum every time you disagree with the other boys._

What Takumi didn’t have words for then, what he couldn’t express, was that he didn’t want to get along. He didn’t want to agree. Nevermind that his sudden short temper had only started after their father and stepmother had both passed, but Ryoma never pointed it out. He didn’t dare.

People – especially the other boys, the ones who didn’t like his loud mouth or his attitude – were cruel. If you gave them half a chance, they’d take advantage of you, and Takumi refused to let himself be rolled over.

He wasn’t interested in trying to play nice with Leo, mutual friends or not.

By the time they pulled into the parking lot, the sun was setting over the mountains that surrounded the city. All the smog cast it a deep red; Takumi always thought it looked a little like the world was in flames when the sun set past the city. The light hit him right in the eyes, exacerbating the headache that had started to pulse at his temples. He thought that the afternoon might never end, but he had to see it through.

Sakura was sitting on the bench outside the wide school doors, violin case laying across her knobby knees. As soon as she saw the blue hatchback pull up, she leapt to her feet, smoothing her cotton sundress before she ran to the car. Takumi rolled down the window and smiled at her.

“Hey,” he greeted, and her smile died a little when she glanced nervously at the inside of the car.

“Where should I…?” she started, and he filled in, “Just sit next to Oboro.”

Oboro, practiced with years of dealing with Takumi’s nervous little sister, shoved Odin over so she could scootch farther in. She patted the leather seat next to her, then reached out to take Sakura’s violin case, and said, “Sit down, kiddo. You can use my seatbelt.”

Sakura did as she was told, and Takumi had to bite his bottom lip sharply to keep from laughing when he turned around and saw how crowded the backseat had become. He waited until Sakura had buckled up before he asked, “Your day good? Practice good? Do I need to beat anyone up?”

“N…no. I mean, my day was good,” she managed, clearly uncomfortable with the presence of strangers in a space so near her. All of the siblings wondered, sometimes concerned and sometimes not, if Sakura would ever grow out of her cripplingly shyness. Ryoma and Hinoka had always been the outgoing ones, while Takumi and Sakura often opted to stay at home, to avoid people when it suited them. But Takumi could at least pretend, most of the time, that he was a complete extrovert – Sakura couldn’t even fake it.

“Hey,” Odin said, sticking his head around Oboro, who grimaced when she nearly caught a mouthful of his ash blonde hair. “I’m Odin. This is Leo. Sorry we took up all the car space. Your brother is giving us a ride to the store.”

“It’s okay,” she squeaked, and Takumi slammed the car into drive, drawing loud complaints from Oboro and Hinata and a mutter from Leo. Sakura, to her credit, didn’t even blink as he screeched out of the parking lot. The drive to their home was short – all four of them had grown up in a house at the base of the hills, a stucco-roofed one level with old wooden floors and soft cream walls. Hinata rolled the window down and caught the breeze when Takumi actually obeyed the law and slowed down in the residential area.

The lawns were all cropped short, palm trees lining the wide one-lane road of the neighborhood. All of the houses were a good space apart, not as squashed as they were closer to the heart of the city. A sharp wave of nostalgia hit him every time he drove home and realized that he wasn’t actively living here anymore; moving out was weird, growing up was weirder. Knowing he’d be going back to the dorm later with Hinata was as freeing as it was nerve-wracking.

But unlike some people, he could always go home whenever he wanted, and he thought that counted for something.

When they pulled into the concrete driveway, Takumi could see Ryoma standing out in the front yard, watering the rose bushes. He was in his post-work clothes, a white tank top and – goddammit, was he wearing sandals with socks?

“Dude, is your brother wearing sandals with socks?” Hinata asked, voicing aloud what surely everyone had noticed at exactly the same time. Odin let out a sharp bark of laughter.

“He does that a lot,” Takumi muttered, and he rolled down the window. “Ryoma!”

The man turned around, wild brown hair stuffed into a ponytail, and he waved. The side door popped open, and Sakura scrambled out of the car. She got about five feet away before turning back sharply, running to the window, and kissing Takumi’s cheek.

“Thank you for the ride! I love you!” she said, words tripping over each other, and then she ran to the house and disappeared inside before Takumi could even say goodbye.

“Well, she was sweet,” Leo commented. The words were neutral enough that Takumi couldn’t actually assume it was sarcastic, and that was lucky for Leo; Takumi would have kicked his ass all the way across the city if there had even been a hint of mockery in his tone.

“Yeah, she is,” he said, suspicious of Leo’s compliment. Ryoma wandered over to the car, dragging the hose with him.

“Little brother,” Ryoma said in way of greeting, then raised a hand. “And little brother’s friend, hello.”

Oboro rolled down her back window and propped an elbow on the rim. “Nice sandals, Ryoma. You really got your dad look on today.”

“They’re comfortable,” he replied, looking down at his own feet.

“I bet they are,” Takumi said dryly. Despite Ryoma’s horrible fashion sense, the guy was about as successful as anyone in the family could ever hope to be. When he wasn’t at the office, he was at home, taking care of Sakura. It occasionally made Takumi a little uncomfortable, thinking about how much Ryoma had had to replace their father. Both he and Hinoka’s college bills had been covered by him, and he insisted on paying for them until his funds had completely run dry.

Takumi was as grateful for him as he was jealous.

“Thank you for giving your sister a ride. Hinoka has time to do it the rest of the week,” he said. The hose that he held in his large hand was slowly leaking onto the ground. “Are you coming home this weekend?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“I’m coming too,” Hinata said, leaning over Takumi’s lap so Ryoma could better hear him. “You’ll feed me, right?”

“Don’t we always?” Ryoma asked with a good-natured smile, white teeth against tan skin. “Are all of you coming over?”

“I am,” Oboro answered at the same time Odin said, “Wait, can we?” Leo elbowed him sharply in the side, drawing a pained grunt.

“Well, just let me know,” the man concluded, and Takumi was too weary to try and deftly explain that he had just met both of the other boys today and that just seeing Leo breathe gave him a headache.

“Sure thing. We’re gonna head to the grocery store, though, so I’ll text you later?” Takumi said, releasing the car brake.

“Be safe,” he said. “And buy some vegetables. And fruit. Don’t just buy instant soup and macaroni.”

“I can’t promise anything.”

“ _Takumi.”_

“Yes, okay, I will buy one whole vegetable and one whole fruit. Rest easy,” Takumi sighed, and Ryoma laughed, deep in his chest. For a split second, Takumi missed him so much that it made his throat thick with emotion. And then the second was gone, and he was backing out the driveway.

Ryoma walked back over to finish watering the garden, sandals sinking into the soft grass of the front yard. From here, he looked exactly like their father.

 

* * *

 

 

About 5 minutes into the store trip, Takumi learned three things: No one should let Leo steer a shopping cart because he kept hitting corners of stands; Odin was a pain in the ass because he had to _touch all the food they passed_ ; and last, but certainly not least, he was miserable.

The third point was the most important of this short list, but here he was, shivering in the cold section of the organics, watching Hinata pick up various vegetables with a confused look on his face.

“Hey, Leo, you’re smart,” Hinata started, and he held up broccoli in one hand and a red pepper in the other. “Which one is better for you?”

Leo, who was leaning on the damned shopping cart and looking about as miserable as Takumi felt, squinted.

“I don’t know vegetable qualities off the top of my head,” he replied dryly, “but I’m pretty sure it’s broccoli. Though they’d both be a healthy choice.”

“We promised Ryoma one vegetable. Just one. We have to be picky,” he replied, but bagged up the broccoli anyway and threw it in the cart alongside the apples they had gotten for their ‘one whole fruit’. “Thank god that’s done. Now we can go get ramen.”

“Ah, the staple of any college student,” Takumi said, half-smiling when Hinata gave him a thumbs up. He crossed his bare arms, trying to will down the goosebumps. The bright lights of the grocery store only served to nurse the headache that had been encroaching upon him all day. He reached up and rubbed his temple, willing it down.

He followed the direction that Hinata had run off in, walking awkwardly next to Leo as he pushed the cart. One of the wheels was squeaky, and it cut through the pounding in his head each time it turned. They trailed after the rest of their friends as they walked down different aisles, arguing and sometimes laughing. Hinata spent the better part of ten minutes in front of the ramen display, debating between spicy miso and shrimp as if he wasn’t going to buy both. Leo played the part of a good roommate and stopped Odin from buying fifteen cans of tuna fish, insisting that it would take them forever to eat all of the cans if he and Niles even remembered they were in the pantry, anyway.

It would have been incredibly domestic and maybe even endearing if Takumi hadn’t been wilting by the minute. The day had been impossibly long and his brain felt like it was too big for his skull. His migraines were frequent, but stress made them worse, and irritation from the stress made them nearly unbearable. He gave himself a little under an hour before he would need to be in a dark room, under his bed covers with his eyes shut tight.

They made one loop around the store, and Takumi thought they could finally, _finally_ leave when Hinata leafed through his wallet and declared suddenly that he wanted fish (which just meant he actually had enough money to afford a couple fillets of whatever was on sale).

So they went back, that damned squeaky cart aching and groaning the entire way, and Takumi was about an inch away from being at the end of his rope. He stood by the fruit stands, hoping the air from the cold case might make him feel a little better. Leo leaned against the edge of the huge boxes that held all the oranges and grapefruits, pale arms crossed over his chest. Odin had scuttled off to look at the fish with Hinata and Oboro, leaving the two boys to stand next to each other in a tense silence.

The longer it stretched on, the more that Takumi felt like he should say something. Anything.

“So are you and your roommate bumming a ride from us on the way home, too?” Takumi asked, and the question came out meaner than he’d intended. _Whoops._ Well, that was certainly something to break the silence. In his shuddery defense, his pain was making him more ill-tempered than usual, but Leo had no way of knowing that. The blonde turned to him with a carefully blank expression on his face.

“We’ll walk home. I wouldn’t want us to inconvenience you anymore than we have already,” Leo replied sarcastically, then added, “Nevermind that it was your friend who offered us a ride.”

“He did it because he’s nice.”

“And if you had any guts, you would have just told us we weren’t welcome.”

Leo went to walk away, but Takumi reached out and grabbed the other’s wrist, forcing him to stop and at least acknowledge the fact that they weren’t done. In the few seconds before Leo ripped his wrist from Takumi’s grasp, it was easy to feel the bone beneath the chilly skin. Leo’s expression was unreadable. From here, they could hear Odin and Hinata cackling, looking into the lobster tank by all the seafood and pointing. Even Oboro was smiling. All three of them fit with each other effortlessly, and Takumi thought again of Ryoma telling him, a little wearily all those years ago, _just try to get along._

It wasn’t happening.

“What the fuck is your damage?” Takumi asked before he could stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “Seriously, we’ve known each other for less than a day and you’ve given me more attitude than most people have in a lifetime.”

“I think you’re hardly one to talk,” Leo replied with a sneer, a perfect curl of lip that obviously came naturally to him.

“Is this about the seat?”

“No, it’s not about the seat. You really think I wanted to ride around town and play ‘meet the family’ like we’re all friends?”

“Watch it,” Takumi warned, feeling himself get a little angrier with each second. Breathe, he needed to breathe. “I didn’t want to drag your miserable ass around, either, so give it up with the act. You didn’t answer my question. What’s your problem?”

“You, mainly. What’s yours?”

“My answer is about the same.”

“Then I’m not sure what else you want me to say. Are we done here?” Leo asked.

“Oh yeah, we’re done.”

“Great. I wouldn’t want to take up anymore of your time while you pretend to be functional,” he said, dismissive. Leo turned his head, sharply, as if by turning away he could suddenly erase Takumi from standing in front of him. Poof, and the problem was gone, like magic.

He wasn’t sure what was worse – arguing, Leo’s hot glare boring right through his skull, or being ignored. It didn’t matter; either option wound him up like an old ragdoll, like he was unable to control what his limbs were doing. He felt himself moving, felt his hands twitch, reflexively. The next thing he knew, he dug his fingers into Leo’s shoulders and shoved, _hard._ The other boy stumbled back, nearly losing his balance, grabbing the cart as if to break a fall that wouldn’t happen.

They stared at each other for a moment, both in a kind of disbelief. For a moment, Takumi felt something that was definitely guilt. Then Leo’s face twisted up, and Takumi braced himself for an explosive argument, gut clenching.

But before either of them could start hollering in public, Odin walked up, holding a jar of cocktail sauce and looking decidedly worried. Takumi hadn't even noticed that he had been coming toward them.

“What’s going on?” he asked, eyes darting back and forth between the two of them. Leo cleared his throat, expression careful and shuttered as if nothing had happened at all. Takumi wondered why the ground felt like it was shifting underneath him and then realized with a good amount of despair that he was trembling. Anger and sudden exhaustion were balled up beneath his ribcage like a stone.

“Nothing,” Takumi answered, glancing at Leo before he snatched up the cart and wheeled it over to where Hinata and Oboro stood. His friends were still debating on fish, and had thankfully missed the entire thing. As Takumi walked by Odin, he insisted, “Absolutely nothing.”

 

* * *

 

 

When Odin announced that they were walking home, Hinata was the only who protested. But even he, who could be painfully dense sometimes, was skilled enough in reading the atmosphere to know that something was very wrong. He dropped it quickly.

Odin waved cheerfully before he and Leo crossed the parking lot and headed home, both of them toting plastic bags. And then there were three. Hinata and Oboro loaded up the car with Takumi, choosing not to say anything.

That was, until the doors of the car closed and they were all inside, packed in the tight space.

“Dude, what happened?” Hinata asked without pause. “We left for two seconds and then it got weird. Odin told me in line that you and Leo had a fight. How does that even happen in two seconds?”

“I don’t like him,” was all Takumi replied with, turning the ignition over and backing out of the space. “I seriously don’t like anything about Leo.”

Oboro leaned up from the backseat, resting his elbows on either seat. She raised her perfectly-shaped brows and looked at Takumi through the reflection of the rearview.

“What don’t you like?”

“Him.”

“Yeah, dummy, but what about him? I mean, what makes you not like him? You just don’t have a reason.”

“We almost got into a fight in class this morning. Then he bothered me over taking his seat because I guess we’re _still in elementary school_ , and I don’t know, I thought he was just kind of a shit. And he’s just – he talks down to me. I hate that.”

“I thought he was cool. I mean, kind of quiet. I’m not trying to tell you that you’re wrong, but are you sure you guys didn’t just start off on a bad foot?” Oboro asked, always a surprising voice of reason. Hinata nodded, a lock of chestnut hair flopping against his face, agreeing silently.

“No. He’s an asshole.”

“Takumi-”

“Listen, my head’s about to explode and if I hear knockoff Hot Topic’s name one more time, I’m gonna puke in this damn car, and then Hinoka will kill me. So drop it, okay?”

“Okay, whatever,” she replied, leaning back again, and the car was quiet for a few minutes. Takumi’s head swam with a myriad of emotions and pulses of pain, not sure if he should feel guilty or justified.

“…hey guys?”

“What, Hinata?” Oboro answered without looking, busy staring out of the window.

“I think I left my fish at the end of the conveyor belt.”

“Hinata, oh my god.”

“Can we go back?”

“I’d choke first,” Takumi said, but he ended up making a U-turn at the next red light because Hinata begged, and he had, in fact, left several pieces of fish in the store without ever having bought them. On the second attempt in going back to campus, none of them dared to speak for fear of Takumi snapping and veering right off the road.

They kicked Oboro out at one of the boulevard crosswalks so she’d be closer to her dorm, then Takumi returned Hinoka’s car to the senior parking lot by the university apartments. The entire walk back, Hinata made tiny comments about what he had to do for class the next day and people they passed, just to keep Takumi occupied.

He was stewing. He totally knew he was stewing, but his mind kept replaying the argument at the store over and over again, like it was snagged. There was only one way to fix all of this: he needed to get back, sleep, and then wake up at 1 in the morning to consume as much food as was humanly possible. Worked every time.

And he did exactly that, bidding Hinata an early good night and leaving him to cook his rescued salmon in the shitty dorm kitchen. They had compromised with the university, agreeing to share a one-bedroom if it meant they could have a kitchen to themselves rather than live in one of the buildings with communal kitchens. Hinata was a year ahead of him, so they had the smallest amount of leverage. Rooming together proved to be little problem; before college, Hinata had practically lived at Takumi’s house anyway, so it hardly bothered them to practically breathe each other’s air.

Takumi texted Ryoma just as he had promised with a simple, ‘have a migraine, going to sleep. ttyl’, and then it was a race to see how fast he could get his clothes off and crawl into bed. He stripped down to his boxers and bundled under his comforter with the biggest sigh his lungs could manage.

Beneath the covers, in the dark, he let himself decompress. There was a single pinpoint of light in the room, radiating from the weak nightlight of Takumi’s childhood that he had brought to the dorm with him. He would die before admitting it to anyone that didn’t already know, but complete darkness still freaked him out. Shadows seemed to move and creep on their own accord, and he didn’t trust the corners of any room. His youth had been wracked with night terrors and bouts of sleepwalking that forced his family to learn how to sleep lightly.  

The older he got, the more the horror during the middle of night had slipped away; it was less frequent that he woke up, shaking with fear, or laying on the kitchen floor with no knowledge of how he had gotten there. When it did happen, Hinata always managed to wake up from his own sleep and sit with him, or pick him up off the floor and guide him back to bed. He was good like that.  

His head couldn’t have been on the pillow for more than five minutes before he was knocked out, and when he awoke, it seemed as though he had only dozed. Blearily, he wiped the small amount of drool that had leaked onto his face and realized that the sun was coming up.

Oh.

So much for his original plan to only nap. His migraine had fled, leaving him hungry and groggy in its wake. In the bed across the room, Hinata snored softly, face lax. Takumi got up and made his way into the kitchen, aware that it was just after 5 in the morning and that he was about to eat a whole bowl of pasta. It was a Tuesday, which meant archery practice, which meant he had to inhale his body’s weight in food or he’d want to die.

By the time Hinata awoke around 10, Takumi had already destroyed half a box of cereal and the leftover spaghetti, still in his boxers and not paying attention to the movie that he had decided to play on their small TV. He was busy typing on his laptop, desperately trying to finish a blog post for his sociology class.

“Hey,” Hinata greeted when he walked out, then paused. On the TV, a man ran across a field with a chainsaw, chasing a screaming girl who had blood streaming down her face. “Dude, the day has not even begun. Why are you watching _Chainsaw Massacre_ right now?”

“I’m not watching it,” he replied, without even looking up. “I just shuffled whatever was in our list.”

“This much bloodshed in the morning is not healthy. I’m changing it.”

“Go for it.”

Hinata sat down next to him on their ugly plaid couch and put on something with much less blood and more lowbrow humor, which was sure to make him laugh anyway. They didn’t move from that spot until Takumi managed to drag himself into the shower and then clothes, leaving for his class at noon. It was drizzling rain, unsurprisingly, and Takumi pulled the hoodie on his sleeveless shirt up, fearing that his mess of hair would only be worsened by the water.

The day, for what it was worth, passed uneventfully. He went to class and met Oboro and her friend for lunch, then got dressed for practice. The amount of people at the university who practiced archery were minimal, and Takumi was one out of a whopping three who still dressed in traditional gear. He had grown up practicing archery in the Hoshidan sense, and that’s the way it would stay.

He walked himself out to the field and said his sparse greetings to the few others who were already there. Takumi was part of the club, but not really in it – the members were either complete beginners or good enough to compete with no in-between. He showed up mainly just to get access to targets, and the coach mostly let him be.

The rain of the day had cleared up, leaving the sky cloudy and overcast behind it. Takumi set up what he needed and let himself drain of whatever was in his head – classes, money, the previous day. This is where he came to be good at something, to let himself breathe. Archery _felt_ like breathing to him, the bow just an extra limb, all the sweat and aching muscles a sign that he could keep improving.

He inhaled, and drew, held steady, one eye on the target that rested yards away. The chattering of the other people in the green field fell away, the blare of the city that lay right outside of the university just white noise. It all became one big buzzing, and then it bottomed out.

Everything in his mind stilled, and he released the arrow. It flew in a straight spin and thunked itself into the heart of the target, unassuming and fast as lightning. Takumi let the bow down slowly and picked up another arrow, allowing himself a small, private smile.

“Who’s that guy?” he heard someone ask, and Takumi glanced over. Both of the girls were looking past Takumi’s field of vision, behind him, and one of them shrugged in answer. He turned his head, following the direction they had been staring, and saw a familiar figure coming closer.

Across the wide expanse of field, Leo was stalking towards him, dressed head to toe in black. His long legs were moving him quickly, and Takumi scrambled to mentally prepare himself for whatever was about to happen. Were they about to fight? Was he going to have to publically embarrass both of them? He was the one holding the bow and arrow, here. Leo looked _mad_ and not at all worried that Takumi was, quite literally, wielding a weapon.

By the time Leo stomped up to him, Takumi had trained his expression into one that he hoped seemed carefully surprised.

“Uh, hey,” was all that came out of his mouth. Cool, Takumi. Really intimidating. He needed all the leverage he could get, considering Leo was nearly a head taller than him and appeared to be wearing steel-toed combat boots.

“We need to talk.”

“We’re talking.”

“Have you looked at the blog for our English class?” Leo asked, and Takumi didn’t miss the way Leo’s gaze left his face, flickering down to look at his exposed chest before quickly moving back up. The traditional uniform left nearly half of Takumi’s torso out to open air, the stiff cloth cutting diagonally down from his shoulder and wrapping under his ribs, and he had to suck back whatever snide comment was about to leave his mouth. Somehow, asking _‘like what you see?’_ seemed inappropriate and unhelpful right about now.

“No, I’ve been in class all day,” he said. “Look, what do you want? I’m kind of busy.”

“Our professor posted the instructions for the semester long project,” he stressed, “and she put out a list for partners.”

“So?” Takumi asked, not getting it. At least, not immediately. Leo’s face went from angry to exasperated, and it dawned on Takumi exactly what he meant when Leo held his eyes closed for a minute, breathing in hard like he was keeping himself from losing it.

Oh, no. No, no, no.

“Are we – you - ”

“We are.”

The hand that was gripping his bow suddenly grew even sweatier, and Takumi shook his head.

“We are _not partners.”_

“I’m relatively skilled in being literate, and that list definitely said we were paired up,” Leo spat. “I texted Odin, and he texted Hinata so I could figure out where you were. I wanted to come out here and tell you so we could get this straightened out.”

“We’ll just go to the professor and tell her…something. We’re not working together. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Leo echoed hollowly. “So let’s go. She has office hours right now.”

Takumi opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. He wavered on his feet, not quite believing his bad luck. It hadn’t exactly settled in yet.

“No offense, but this is like, my happy place. Where I don’t have to deal with any of…” he trailed off, and waved a hand in the air, gesturing to all of Leo. “ _this._ Let me have some peace. I’ll meet you in thirty minutes.”

Leo narrowed his eyes like he was about to argue, but something in Takumi’s face must have stopped him. His hunched shoulders slowly deflated, as if he had just let out a sigh that he had been holding. A breeze cut across the field, billowing Leo’s short hair around his cheeks, and for a moment, Takumi smelled whatever cologne he was wearing, more floral than he would have guessed for a guy who looked like he hung out in cemeteries for fun. All of this made Leo seem less like a bad daydream from yesterday, and Takumi was repulsed by the fact.

“Fine. But just thirty minutes,” Leo said, and then he spun on his heel and started walking away, leaving Takumi to stand there in a stupor.

Partners. They were supposed to be partners…for five months, two people who agreed and worked together. He let out a laugh to himself, under his breath, one that was devoid of any humor. The chances of them being completely fucked were much higher than the chances of their professor letting them switch.

If he was ever going to drop out of college, he guessed now was the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reliable List of References:  
> 1\. Beginning quote is from "Heebiejeebies" by Aminé.  
> 2\. The outfit Takumi is wearing at the end of this chapter is actually drawn and based off a sketch from one of the game artists. He's drawn in traditional kyudo clothes and his hair is in a bun and god I love him. 
> 
> Remember that weekly update schedule? Don't know her. My life has been crazy the past few weeks and I had zero time to write until these past couple days that I've had off from work. I'm super sorry that this took me forever to crank out, but here we are. Questions/comments/concerns are more than appreciated, and thank you for reading!
> 
> As always, you can find me at laceandcaramel.tumblr.com or on Twitter/Instagram @ seafoam_sighs.
> 
> Till next time!


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